7. MODALITIES - Part 01

7. MODALITIES

a) Ceasefire applies to all weapons, including the installation of mines or improvised devices.

b) The Government of the Republic of Macedonia is taking all possible measures to ensure security and freedom of movement for all international community personnel.

c) They will maintain the current position of their armed forces, except where arrangements are made to enable local disengagements or where government forces are instructed to return to the barracks. The ceasefire must not be exploited to improve their positions.

8. WARNING

a) After the ceasefire goes into effect, law enforcement forces will perform their duties without bias and will fully act against all threats to the Republic of Macedonia without any ethnic, religious or racial prejudice.

b) None of the above ceasefire provisions will be interpreted as loss of the inherent right to self-defense, meaning using proportional force necessary for self-defense from limited or continuous attack. Any use of force must be limited to the extent, intensity and duration necessary for self-defense and no more. Revenge is not self-defense and represents a violation of the ceasefire.”

Chief of Staff of General Headquarters Lieutenant General, Pande Petrovski s.r. General, Risto Galevski

The ceasefire Agreement was negotiated and signed on July 5, 2001, or 10 days after the termination of the Arachinovo operation and the extraction of the terrorists by NATO. In other words, the Agreement was compiled very quickly and efficiently...!

About 30 minutes before the signing, on July 5, 2001, myself (Pande Petrovski) and General Risto Galevski were invited to sign the agreement. I did not know who had compiled the letter (ceasefire

agreement) but from its content and the fact that everything that was asked for was accepted, I concluded that this was the work of Peter Faith, the same person who had submitted a letter to the Government of the Republic of Macedonia.

It was not quite clear to me why the letter (Agreement) had to be signed by me and General Risto Galevski on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia when, as I said earlier, we were not members of that government!? It was explained to us that we commanded the armed forces and that we would provide our own written orders for the full implementation of the same. We were also told that Peter Faith would make sure the other side (terrorists) would sign a ceasefire document similar to this. However, I never saw such a document then or after that. I assume the Macedonian Government received this document signed by Ali Ahmeti or G’zim Ostreni.

Regardless of what I thought, I accepted my responsibility and signed the unconditional ceasefire document because of the overall situation in the Republic of Macedonia, which involved the International Community and especially NATO. The military crisis had to be dealt with as soon as possible, even by political means if necessary, before a civil war erupted or worse, Macedonia was divided.

The same day I gave an order to the field units to implement a ceasefire.

We entered a stage when we began to solve the military crisis through intermediaries and facilitators, of course under peaceful means.

At the outset of the crisis we publicly called our antagonists “terrorists” even though they called themselves “National Liberation Army” NLA. But, according to their way of fighting they used classical terrorist methods, especially in Kumanovo and even later. They held people hostage, they harassed and blackmailed people. They blew up public roads, set ambushes outside the military zones, etc. In other words, they acted exactly like terrorists!

At the outset the so-called NLA defined itself as an “organized rebel army” with aims at “getting more rights for the Albanian minority in Macedonia”. It is somewhat understandable for a group of people nowadays, as often happens, to want to gain “special” rights. But special “rights” are not gained through terrorist activities and by organizing an armed “rebel army”. The route taken here is not to achieve “special rights” but a military revolution which is designed to bring radical changes in the country. A military revolution does not happen on its own, it must be driven by political structures and intra-political structures that set goals in the state where this is taking place and above all, before the International Community. In our example, with respect to support of an “organized insurgent army”, in its very appearance, was supported by political structures that were in power, and later by the opposition (talks in Ohrid) from the Albanian block.

If at the beginning of the conflict the Government of the Republic of Macedonia publicly defined the goals of the “insurgent army” and did not call them terrorists, the course of the resolution would have taken a different connotation in the Republic of Macedonia and in the international community - especially in the Albanian bloc of parties which were directly involved in the Government and all other state structures. All this and what happened up to the ceasefire going into effect, leads me to the conclusion that “the military crisis in Macedonia was ‘agreed in advance’ by the political structures inside the Republic of Macedonia who were then in power and were strictly controlled by the International Community in order to achieve radical political changes”. (Making changes to the Constitution and everything that emerged from that). If we are to look at past events and documents we will discover that the International Community openly gave its support to “solving the crisis by peaceful means” even though the “military revolution or military crisis” brought to Macedonia was started from the outside, by a foreign country, through the introduction of legal military means (Kosovo Protection Corps). And all this time, right up to the signing of the ceasefire Agreement, the entire crisis was led from Prizren where the General headquarters and NLA leadership was stationed, which communicated directly with the internal political structures in the Republic of Macedonia. Some of these political personalities even attended NLA meetings in Prishtina and Prizren

even though they called the NLA a “diversionary terrorist group” or more commonly as terrorists. While our operation in Arachinovo was being terminated, Peter Faith openly said to me: “General, these are not terrorists, they are an ethnic rebel army, an armed organization that wants its rights in your country, they must be treated according to the Geneva Convention”. He not only said this to me, there were government ministers and other government officials in my presence who heard it, but none of them said anything.

After my re-entry into active service in ARM, the two different views for resolving the military crisis, as proposed by the top state and military officials, from the beginning were illogical to me. One side was all for the crisis to be resolved with the use of military means and by legal use of our security forces; while the other side argued that: “The crisis should be resolved by political means.” This was the same group which disagreed with the specified border between Yugoslavia and the Republic of Macedonia! I personally believe that the then ruling class knew the real purpose of the military crisis right from the start, but dared not tell the public. The DPA (political party of the Albanians in Macedonia), as a coalition partner in the government, held out and remained in power until the new elections. But, regardless of the two different ways in wanting to resolve the military crisis in the Republic of Macedonia, it was decided to use the security forces to begin operations but decided to break them off before the crisis had ended. And, as always, using the excuse not to accumulate “large civilian casualties” or “not to cause the Albanian people to rebel”, etc.

Basically, the idea was to start a military operation and see what happened. If military success was possible then the tools to control the military crisis would be employed because that’s how the “manager” of the crisis wanted it to go. The government was allowed to use the security forces but was not allowed to resolve the crisis by military means. Every time there was a chance for success the military operation was prematurely terminated. This was done to prove to the people that the military was incapable of resolving the crisis and a political solution was justified. But ultimately the crisis was resolved by a third means, a third option was selected; a “hot and cold” option, by military and political means.

The President’s position was well known to the public, especially with his plan for resolving the crisis, i.e. the President always advocated the crisis to be resolved by political means and with the support of NATO, EU and OSCE, justifying his position for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Prime Minister Georgievski, on the other hand, advocated for a full military resolution to the crisis and was even prepared to declare martial law in the Republic of Macedonia if necessary. But, every time we started a military operation the Prime Minister would show up at the command post and watch until the operation was terminated. Classic examples of this were the military operations in Kumanovo and Arachinovo. The Prime Minister publicly advocated for the crisis to be resolved by military means but every time the operation was interrupted he had no objections to it. He never objected or questioned why the operation was terminated.

During the time the unconditional ceasefire Agreement was signed, behind which the Macedonian Government stood, ARM and all the Macedonian security forces were in excellent shape and at their highest degree of combat readiness. And, had we continued with our operations, we would have had total victory. Unfortunately, the opposite took place, our actions were terminated and conditions we set as stated in the letter by Peter Faith, such that the crisis was solved with direct NATO, EU and OSCE participation. One would have to wonder why?